Obama and incivility: A presidential tradition

Let's face it: Some Republicans just don't like some Democrats, and vice versa.

Even when one of them is president.

The tarmac tiff between President Obama and Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer -- in which Brewer pointed her finger at the president -- is only the latest example of the truism that American politics can be pretty unfriendly, although some analysts believe things are getting harsher.

"Politics has always been pretty uncivil," said early-America historian John Ferling. "Until recently, there was a feeling that the president stood apart, the office of the presidency. ... Otherwise, politics has always been pretty dirty."

George C. Edwards III, a political scientist at Texas A&M University, said "there's always been criticism of presidents," but he added that "I think the criticism is worse now."

If there has been a spike in recent years, there are are many possible reasons. They include the rising ideological polarization of the political parties, the explosion of the 24/7 cable news and the Internet, the general rise of incivility in the culture at large, and -- yes -- the fact that Obama is the nation's first African-American president.

Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a specialist in political language, pointed out that "we don't know who said what to whom about what" during the Obama-Brewer exchange on Tuesday evening in Arizona.

Jamieson, who runs a website on politics and media called Flackcheck.org, also said she doesn't think political incivility is on the rise, only the attention paid to it. "Coverage of incivility has increased because of cable news and the Internet," Jamieson said.

Meanwhile, White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters today that the Obama-Brewer discussion was "not a very big deal at all," and "you guys are giving this incident far too much importance."

Yet the exchange quickly went viral on the Internet. And Brewer's book, one of the sources of the dispute, zoomed to the top of the Amazon charts.

Marc Landy, a political scientist at Boston College and co-author of Presidential Greatness, said that both Obama and Brewer appeared to have committed "minor gaffes" in their exchange -- Obama for lecturing the Republican governor during what was supposed to be a ceremonial welcoming and Brewer for wagging a finger in the face of the president.

The dispute centered on immigration policy; Obama accused Brewer of writing a distorted account of an Oval Office conversation the two had on the subject.

Landy said the situation was most reminiscent of a tense exchange in 2006 between President George W. Bush and Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., at a White House meeting with new lawmakers. Webb, a Vietnam War veteran whose son was serving in Iraq at the time, had a snippy exchange with Bush when the president asked him about his son.

Unlike the Brewer-Obama tiff, that exchange happened with no cameras around.

But "in the history of the vilification of presidents," Landy said Brewer's finger-wagging was rather tame. "John Adams was called an agent of the British," Landy said. "The Jeffersonians went so far as to accuse him of treason."

If Obama, as Brewer suggested, instigated the exchange, Landy said, the president was showing "poor form."

"At the end of the day, she shouldn't have been pointing her finger at him," Landy said. "At the same time, if the president was going to dress her down, he should be doing it in private."

As Landy noted, criticism of the president is as old as the presidency itself.

Even George Washington took heat from a newspaper secretly funded by his own secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson. (Washington's backers had their own newspapers, one of which later reported on the relationship between President Jefferson and a slave named Sally Hemmings.)

In the pivotal election of 1800, members of Jefferson's Republicans described Federalist President John Adams as a "hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman."

Not to be outdone, an Adams backer described future President Jefferson as "a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father."

Political incivility has even turned deadly, most notably during the Civil War.

Times of social stress also tend to elevate invective against presidents. During the Great Depression and New Deal, critics called President Franklin Roosevelt "a traitor."

War can also escalate political rhetoric.

During Vietnam, protesters chanted at President Lyndon B. Johnson, "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?" (Ferling recalled seeing a political button during Johnson's tenure that read: "Lee Harvey Oswald -- Where are you now that we need you?")

More recently, after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, protesters said, "Bush Lied, People Died."

The Obama-Brewer incident is a small example related to one of the prominent features of modern politics: increased political polarization.

"We have divided into two camps that have very great differences," Edwards said. "And they see the other side as somehow illegitimate."

Among the reasons: gerrymandered congressional districts that are drawn to be more Republican or Democratic; talk radio; and a general coarsening of the popular culture.

Some politicians are rewarded for incivility. When Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., shouted "you lie" at Obama during a 2009 health care speech, Wilson's political contributions immediately picked up. Edwards said, "Today, if you're uncivil, one side or the other is going to rise up and support you," Edwards said.

Ferling, author of Adams vs. Jefferson: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, pointed to a general coarsening of the political culture, citing examples ranging from road rage to loud talking in libraries. "People are just sort of rude toward one another," he said.

He said that at least some of the criticism directed toward Obama in particular seems to have a "racial component." Ferling, for example, cited questions about Obama's place of birth.

"From the very beginning, he's just been really savaged," Ferling said.

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About David Jackson

David's journalism career spans three decades, including coverage of five presidential elections, the Oklahoma City bombing, the 2000 Florida presidential recount and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He has covered the White House for USA TODAY since 2005. His interests include history, politics, books, movies and college football -- not necessarily in that order. More about David